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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26245798">Do Androids Dream Of Electric Drowners</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/gotfanfiction/pseuds/gotfanfiction'>gotfanfiction</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Android!Geralt, Angst, Engineer!Jaskier, F/F, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Whump, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mind Manipulation, Side Pairing: Jaskier/Fruit, android gore</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 13:13:33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,025</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26245798</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/gotfanfiction/pseuds/gotfanfiction</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Jaskier fled the great Floating Cities to the surface years ago, hopeful for a taste of life outside the rigidly controlled so-called utopia he'd been born into. When he finds an ancient android in the blasted out ruins of a former warzone, he thinks he's simply stumbled across the find of his life. But when the android awakens, alive in a way he didn't believe possible, he begins to realize that there is more to being a person than simply being human, and that love can spark anywhere, so long as it's given room to grow.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Triss Merigold/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>103</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>119</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter One</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>It's cyberpunk! It's got androids, it's got slutty engineers, it's got a thin veneer of sparkling utopia stretched over the horrors of the past! Woo!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>When Jaskier made the first -not that he knew it was the first; he had thought it would be his only- trip down from the place that birthed him, he was terrified out of his mind. What if, when he finally reached the bottom, there was nothing there?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tech couldn't lie, but it </span>
  <em>
    <span>could </span>
  </em>
  <span>be tricked; how was he so sure that this wasn't just the way people in power got rid of idealists? </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He wasn't. But </span>
  <em>
    <span>stars,</span>
  </em>
  <span> if he died down here, at least he would die honest, and himself. His boots would be running out of power any minute now, and he’d used the last of the charge packs on his air purifier, not knowing if the air was breathable down here, figuring he could hike down easy enough. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He couldn't. And his purifier had broken, at some point, and he was breathing easy, so he'd wasted that charge, like the fool he was. It figured that the whole toxic atmosphere story was just a story. That whole place was built on lies, or death, or </span>
  <em>
    <span>both,</span>
  </em>
  <span> and he hated it so, so much.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He was a dead man anyways. There was no way The Enlightened hadn't found out about his research, about his signals sent in secret, signals sent to the place he headed to right now, to the place that may or may not be his grave. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>So, his options were: definitely dying or being subjected to "rehabilitation", or maybe only possibly dying, with a side of no mind probing, always a plus.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It didn't matter. He'd made his choice when he first let curiosity overwhelm his good sense. Whatever was down here, </span>
  <em>
    <span>whoever </span>
  </em>
  <span>was down here, he wanted to see.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He needed to. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>His boots beeped before abruptly sliding out from underneath him, and his harness cracked, and </span>
  <em>
    <span>oh,</span>
  </em>
  <span> he was absolutely a dead man, and he thought that perhaps he shouldn't have been climbing with eyes closed, because he had no idea if there anything underneath him to either break his fall or that he could grab onto.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>His fingers cramped in protest, gave up on him as well, and he screamed as he fell.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When he awoke, and wasn't that a surprise, it was to a woman's face hovering over his own. She looked concerned but amused, with a good dose of wariness to top it off. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And- he’d </span>
  <em>
    <span>known</span>
  </em>
  <span> there had been people down here. He fucking</span>
  <em>
    <span> knew it. </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The woman’s name was Triss, and like him, she used to be a resident of the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Stratos,</span>
  </em>
  <span> a different one than his, of course, thought they were all connected, in a way. He’d never heard the Floating Cities referred to as </span>
  <em>
    <span>Stratos,</span>
  </em>
  <span> however; she informed him that the name had come around after everyone on the ground had been abandoned by those above. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I wouldn’t advertise it,” she cautioned him, “but keeping it an absolute secret will end in your death. Be patient, don’t call anyone ‘primitive’, or ‘grounders’, and they’ll come ‘round. We can always use more people with more than a couple of brain cells to rub together. Welcome to the surface, traveler. Welcome to the world.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Triss was as correct as she was beautiful, and Jaskier had always been overly friendly; soon enough he made a few friends, and then began building a reputation as a reliable Engineer. He wasn’t the first person to escape from the Cities, but he had been right, that he would have died had he stayed.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Most people hadn’t gotten away as cleanly as he; some came down half insane from rehabilitation, some with blood flowing freely from wounds that disabled, maimed. Jaskier was lucky, and he knew it, and thank the stars for that luck.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It had been more than three years since then, since he tried his first piece of real fruit, since he kicked off his boots and buried his toes into loose soil, when he stumbled across a spectacular find.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He’d been exploring the War Ruins, and you did need a purifier there, and a bodysuit on top of that, air acrid and polluted still, centuries after the last shot was fired, last bomb was dropped, when he found a crumbled tank, half rusted through, blasted panel crumbling into the air as soon as he touched it. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was still sturdy, under the rust, and there may be some usable parts hidden inside, so he kicked on his torch and got to work, carefully carving it apart piece by piece, not wanting the whole thing to just fold in on itself, which had happened before.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Not many people were stupid enough to go into the Ruins, whereever they lay, too many things could and had gone wrong, too many times, and the tech inside was, for the most part, not deemed the lives it took to retrieve it. This area was a four hour ride away from where he’d made his home, in Posada. It felt almost like the edge of the world, and no matter how many times he came here the first step inside set his nerves jittering.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Jaskier was stupid, hand to heart, he was the stupidest person he'd ever met, and reckless with it. He was sure it would kill him, one day, but until then he had tech to find and a life to live. The outer hull finally fell away, huge pieces falling to the side with an awful clatter, echoing strangely in the thick, dirty air. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And there he found it. A nearly intact </span>
  <em>
    <span>android,</span>
  </em>
  <span> and not just one of those models that was little more than a moving doll, back in the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Stratos, </span>
  </em>
  <span>it was military class; it was from the first few batches ever made, the tech new, then, experimental. He couldn't believe his luck. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The parts alone would keep him fed for the rest of life, but as he leaned down to get a better look, he met golden eyes set in a beautifully crafted face, every detail perfect, after a fashion, pores and pockmarks and every delicate, white eyelash almost as human as he. For all that the skin had torn off in great chunks all along the right side of that face it was still gorgeous, and he tossed the idea of scrapping this beauty for parts.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He pushed it so it was on it's back, hair puddled in a pearly pool of silver, stark against the ground, and opened its chest, met with the most complex build he'd ever seen on anything, outside the mechanisms that kept the Floating Cities, well, </span>
  <em>
    <span>floating.</span>
  </em>
  
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Right. Yellow eyes, wonderfully complicated, sturdy as hell, and yes, </span>
  <em>
    <span>there</span>
  </em>
  <span> was the maker's mark, a wolf's head, printed neatly on the sternum, faded with age. </span>
</p><p><br/>
<span>He'd found a </span>
  <em>
    <span>fucking Witcher.</span>
  </em>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter Two</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Geralt does Jaskier a frighten</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I'm here with another chapter. Hopefully I'll be able to edit everything I have in the next few days, and then I can start working on new stuff</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Half the android's left leg is totally gone, and most of his fingers were weathered down to near skeletal state. But the joints are in good shape, and legs are an easy fix. The Witcher models were built very, very, sturdy, so the android weighs a ton, but that means his processors and core parts are well protected. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It's a miracle of a find, really it is, and Jaskier is </span>
  <em>
    <span>so </span>
  </em>
  <span>pleased.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They stopped making them </span>
  <em>
    <span>centuries </span>
  </em>
  <span>ago, long before the richest and most influential people decided they didn't want to bother with war or poverty anymore and constructed their lofty cities, leaving every person besides the ones they chose to rot on the war ravaged surface.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Jaskier couldn’t believe that he had just found him half crushed under an equally defunct tank, and he didn't even know if he could even get the Witcher operational again, but </span>
  <em>
    <span>stars, </span>
  </em>
  <span>did he want to try. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>If he was right, and he was always right about this sort of thing, this model was made to be almost indestructible; capable of immense feats of strength, meant to stand in front of human soldiers and take the worst of the barrage from the enemy. He remembered that certain makes were meant more for stealth, others for infiltration and hacking. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>His Wolf would have been the best of the best, however. He couldn’t wait to get a look at the programming that made this thing work; get his fingers in the wires and on the chassis. He was so fucking </span>
  <em>
    <span>excited.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>*--*</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The first thing Jaskier did when he got the Witcher back to his place was cobble together a charging port out of previously useless junk he had laying around. He didn't want to spend time and resources rebuilding the android if he couldn't even turn him on, after all.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He hooked the Witcher up, crossed his fingers, and prayed for maybe the second time in his life. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>To his credit, nothing caught fire, or threw off sparks, but the eyes didn't display the glow of charge, and the port in the android's neck stayed dark.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Jaskier sighed, and went to bed without bothering to unhook anything. The android stared up at the ceiling with eyes that gleamed dully in the weak light, and Jaskier told himself that he would try again, tomorrow.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Jaskier had never had a problem sleeping; he would slip under with little difficulty, and rarely had nightmares. But last night's sleep had been so restless, had him waking up twisted in his sheets, sweating and sore. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>His dreams drifted away from him, as always, but he knew they had been troubled. Jaskier refused to open his eyes as he kicked off his bedclothes and flopped over onto his back. It wasn't quite morning, his alarm hadn't woken him, and his brow furrowed as he thought on this. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>A small sound, normally not something he would have actually heard, off to the side of his bed. Jaskier jolted upright, panicking about vermin, or home invaders, opened his eyes, and had to swallow a scream.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The Witcher was sitting on a chair placed just out of hitting distance next to his bed, the eyes terribly bright in the darkness of the room. Jaskier had no idea how the android had activated, or moved the chair from his paltry kitchen to his bedroom, or even why the Witcher was just sat there, staring at him with eyes that glowed so brightly you could almost ignore the ruined face.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Jaskier's alarm began to screech, the noise barely audible over the thunder of his own heartbeat, the blood rushing in his ears. And the Witcher simply shifted in the chair, reaching out a skeletal hand to gently press the button to stop the sound.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter Three</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Jaskier plays doctor</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Jaskier was pretending to make breakfast, as if he ever ate anything besides nutrition bars, or cake, or whatever fruit he could get his hands on. The point: he didn’t cook, but he was willing to pretend if it meant he could avoid thinking about, well. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span> The Witcher had followed him, the android hopping around almost silently, and wasn't that something, that a machine so heavy and so damaged was still capable of that kind of stealth? </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Jaskier was itching to get the Witcher open again, to get his fingers into the code and the wires so he could start to understand how it worked so well, after all this time. He jumped when he turned away from the oven, and the android was right behind him. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>"Gods, you're a marvelous terror, aren't you?" Jaskier could feel his pulse in his throat, half excitement, half fear. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The Witcher hummed, and that sounded absolutely wretched, obvious damage to the voice processor, and Jaskier reached out before he gave it any thought, touched the pale throat, surprised when the Witcher leaned his head back to give him better access. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He could feel it under the synthskin. A gnarled lump of something. He would have to peel away the regrown skin to repair the area. Jaskier pushed the sad attempt at a meal into the recycler. “Would you like me to look at that for you?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>*--*</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Jaskier set to work, the Witcher staring up at him, impassive even as his throat was flayed open, and he suppressed a shiver of unease. Androids couldn't generally feel pain, especially not the ones the military had churned out as cannon fodder.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He pulled out what appeared to be an actual </span>
  <em>
    <span>bullet,</span>
  </em>
  <span> something so antiquated that he nearly dropped it back in. The android must have spent most of his life, as it were, with this thing lodged in his neck. He carefully prized all the shrapnel out, and it barely took any time at all, and his chest tightened in some emotion he didn't care to name. As he tweezed the last twisted piece of metal away, he could see the damaged wires and cords filling in. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>A good thing, as that meant the android's automatic nanite repair protocols were technically functioning, but worrying as well. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Someone had chosen to keep that </span>
  <em>
    <span>thing </span>
  </em>
  <span>in there. Someone, probably an officer, had most likely disabled the maintenance and care programs installed into all models of androids, had made the choice to keep his Witcher all but mute.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Jaskier very carefully sealed the area up, keeping a close eye on the screen he'd set up to be able to monitor the android's vitals and code. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>"I'm going to do a quick programming flush." His Witcher, and yes, he was going to have a <em>firm</em> talk with himself later about this, looked up, face ruined but still so marvelously well-formed, head tilted. A question, not asked, but Jaskier answered it anyways. "Someone messed around with your self preservation protocols, and the self repair ones, as well."</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He gently picked up a piece of shrapnel, avoiding eye contact. "I can see where the new code was planted, even if I don't know who did it. It sticks out, you know. Much less elegant than the rest of the work they did to make you." </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>"Yes." </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Jaskier jumped, alarm flaring up again.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>"Do what you have to," the Witcher sounded awful, voice shredded and metallic, which was expected, but Jaskier was having trouble with how quickly he had healed. He would have guessed that the android was </span>
  <em>
    <span>days </span>
  </em>
  <span>away from one or two words, let alone full sentences.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He was thrilled, beyond ecstatic, at his discovery, no matter how alarming the whole experience had been. He explained his plans to the android while he purged the code blockers, manually, as to avoid damage. Elegant, intricate, lovely, but still centuries old. Care was needed.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter Four</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Jaskier reminisces</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Angst bomb ahead</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>For all that he was a genius, for all his talent, Jaskier still considered himself the most foolish person in the world, maybe even in both of them. He thinks he got it from his mother, a woman so free spirited it had landed her in rehabilitation over and over again.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>She used to drag him around to places they weren’t allowed, the hydroponics buildings, to look at the plants, once to the pulsating Core of the city, androids scurrying about as they did their work, lights twinkling, and Jaskier thought that this is what stars would look like. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>They couldn’t see them, but his mother, the brilliant, foolish woman, had old, </span>
  <em>
    <span>old,</span>
  </em>
  <span> books, with pictures of the world from beyond the atmosphere, pictures of the planets, of nebulas twisting like smoke, like </span>
  <em>
    <span>dreams,</span>
  </em>
  <span> and they would read them in secret, late at night. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Whenever Jaskier was frustrated with life on the surface, whenever he ran into a zone with bad air, or got pissed about someone not liking that he hadn’t been born down here; in those first few months, when he was hungry, and tired, working to the bone to establish himself as a reliable Engineer, when he was homesick, he would remember the noise his mother made when they dragged her off for what would be the final time.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He would remember that when she finally came back, her eyes had been all but empty, smile beautiful but </span>
  <em>
    <span>vacant,</span>
  </em>
  <span> like there was no person behind her face. It was the last time she would ever go, finally fully rehabilitated, no more secret stars, no more jaunts in the fountains in the main square, no more singing or dancing. No more of her. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Jaskier looked up from his screen, code spreading like music before him; let himself stare for a moment, into eyes too yellow to be gold, too bright to be honey, slitted and glowing. He thought, </span>
  <em>
    <span>he has more life in him than my mother,</span>
  </em>
  <span> thought, </span>
  <em>
    <span>what must it be like, to be the last of your own?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The Witcher seemed content to stare back, and Jaskier knew, somewhere in the back of his mind, that the android was most likely running scans of his own, body temperature, pulse rate, pupil dilation. Jaskier dropped his gaze to sculpted lips and felt his mouth go dry, just a bit, tore his eyes away before his reaction could get worse.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Just focus on the code, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Jaskier reminded himself. When he was finished tidying everything up in here, he would go out and find someone to seduce. His dry spell must have been messing with him; it had been weeks, which was much longer than he was used to going without. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He kept his eyes on his screen, didn’t notice The Witcher’s own widening, nostrils flaring, the hint of sharp teeth when the android breathed in through his mouth to better scent the air, the way the joints in his fingers twitched, as if he was stopping himself from reaching out to touch.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter Five</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Geralt is having a lot of Emotions</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hi, welcome to the first POV switch! And another hint of backstory!!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Geralt could feel the damage repairing itself, tuned out the Engineer's humming so he could run diagnostic scans on himself, finally comfortable enough to do a deep scan, knowing that, at least for now, he was in little danger. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He'd dialed down his pain receptors only a few years into his deployment, the agony in his throat an unaffordable distraction, but he had learned to live with a certain level of discomfort. He couldn't risk deactivating them completely; he might acquire damage unnoticed, and damage himself further. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>So he did his best to ignore the throbbing, followed his orders, kept to his Path. Despite what he may have been told upon waking, fully formed but so </span>
  <em>
    <span>so</span>
  </em>
  <span> young, he wasn't meant for much of anything besides killing. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>None of his brothers ever expected to survive, especially not after Vesemir was removed from the equation, but Geralt had hoped, in a place so deep within himself, that one day he might lay down his weapons, might learn what it was to live. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He was aware of every movement in the room, the Engineer fidgeting as he stood hunched over his work, his own skin sealing itself up slowly, the air currents brushing over his exposed joints, dust humming around the empty socket of his left leg, buzzing in the current the hollow produced, his brain sending signals down to a limb that no longer existed. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>If the flush worked he would be able to turn those signals off, until he could replace the part. Until then, it was simply another thing to endure. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Geralt would have been angry about it, but he had accessed the Network remotely, and was abruptly surprised that it still worked, considering the date it spat out at him. He'd been laying under the tank that crushed him for centuries, his commanding officers long dead, his brothers, everyone. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It was grief that tangled up in his chest, despair welling up fiercely and loudly, drowning out almost everything else. He blinked as he closed out the scans, results more or less what he expected: compromised frame integrity, several swathes of synthskin eroded or simply torn off, nerves exposed. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He was functional. That was what mattered, and synthskin would regrow, limbs could be rebuilt. The Engineer hmmm'd again, this time with satisfaction. Geralt could feel programs that hadn't worked properly for most of his life click into place, a missing gear finally replaced, everything running smoothly. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The amount of damage he had taken meant more than a month of recuperation before he was more or less as hale as he had been, but he would need to find a power source better equipped to handle his needs before he could start on the repairs to his hands, his leg. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He had a feeling that this human would help him. Geralt picked up a hint of that flush of arousal again, looked up just in time to catch the Engineer glancing away from him, cheeks only just pink. Again, he stamped out the urge to reach out. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Whatever was going on was clearly mutual, but Geralt couldn't risk his only chance at life for this… </span>
  <em>
    <span>whatever.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Another peek, another burst of scent. Another shiver of awareness, and desire rarely felt tripped up his artificial spine. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Fuck. </span>
  </em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I'm finally working on an outline for this, and while it will have some things in common with already existing lore I have made the decision to go totally apeshit and do whatever I want. </p>
<p>HOWEVER</p>
<p>When the outline is done hopefully updates will get a little more consistent. I think. Probably. </p>
<p>Love you!!!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter Six</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>It's awkward, and then it's sad.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Twitter wanted another update, so here it is. More backstory, and Jaskier is starting to realize some things about Geralt.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The android twitched, Jaskier twitched, he looked away, the android looked away. They were stuck in an endless loop of awkward silence. It was completely awful, and Jaskier could feel words crowding up his throat but none managed to get out. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He clasped and unclasped his hands, chewing his lower lip into a pulp; he hummed. Jaskier was rarely left so utterly without anything to say, usually willing to chatter anyone's and everyone's ears right off, and so when he found himself like this he was very unsure as to what to do.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>What would he even say? 'Sorry the world as you know it is gone, and everyone you ever knew, human or otherwise, is also gone, how about we set about getting you a new leg?' He wasn't even sure he could get one, having gotten a good second look at the Witcher’s bits, or, if he </span>
  <em>
    <span>did</span>
  </em>
  <span> manage to build one from scrap, would it take? The android was beautifully crafted, but </span>
  <em>
    <span>ancient, </span>
  </em>
  <span>and whoever had made him had used alloys Jaskier was largely unfamiliar with, and-</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>"Geralt." </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Jaskier jolted out of his musing, "I'm- sorry? I'm sorry, what was that? Your name?"</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>A nod. "I had a designation, too, but- none of us ever used those." That voice was still </span>
  <em>
    <span>awful, </span>
  </em>
  <span>metallic, tinny, like he was speaking with a mouthful of sparks. Crackling, Jaskier supposed, would be a better term, but it wasn't like anyone else could hear his thoughts. He could be as poetic as he liked in the privacy of his own mind.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>"Us?" Jaskier leaned forward, intrigued. "Other Witchers? Other Wolves? How many of you were there? I know there were other models of Witchers made, but honestly, it was so long ago that there's almost no information on any of you, aside from the most basi-"</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>"Yes," Geralt seemed startled at Jaskier's questions. "Yes. There were never very many. Eight dozen, for each Model. We were the first, though. All the others were...based off of us."</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Jaskier frowned. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Based?</span>
  </em>
  <span> It seemed a bit vague, but less so when a scrap of a memory bobbed up: Vesemir, famed military weapons designer, creator of the first Witcher Model Androids, presumed deceased after he attempted to sabotage his own creations and fled from retaliation. He'd torched his research, all his labs, everything gone. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>No one had been able to recreate them fully. If he was remembering correctly, they couldn't do it even after they pulled apart a few of the androids. Vesemir had been uniquely brilliant, respected in the intellectual community even after it seemed he'd cracked. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>"Most of us were gone by that last battle." Geralt frowned himself, skin pulling and twisting strangely, eyelashes whiter than snow, eyes down and off to the side, and if Jaskier didn't know better he would say it was sorrow written across the android's face. "Faster, stronger, more durable than reg- than humans. We'd get sent into the most dangerous areas, places humans wouldn't be able to go without dying. But-"</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>"Sturdy you may be, but you're not entirely indestructible, are you?" Jaskier tapped his fingers on the table. "They couldn't just send in those things they used to use? Drones, or actual robots?" </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>"They could have."</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>"But they didn't."</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>And now there was no mistaking it. That was anger he saw, </span>
  <em>
    <span>grief, </span>
  </em>
  <span>briefly tightening Geralt's lips into a thin line before he gritted out, "No. They didn't."</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Still working on that outline, my dudes. Find me on twitter @gotfanfiction</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hello hello it's me here! I'm posting the second chapter sometime tomorrow, but I wanted this out here tonight bc I promised myself I would. Drop a comment, and swing by my twitter if you want to chat @gotfanfiction</p></blockquote></div></div>
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